ever housekeeper like Nell is a fortune in
herself to any man."

"Then the matter's settled, I suppose," said Mr. Whitelaw; "and the
sooner the wedding comes off the better, to my mind. If my wife that is
to be wants anything in the way of new clothes, I shall be happy to put
down a twenty-pound note--or I'd go as far as thirty--towards 'em."

Ellen shook her head impatiently.

"I want nothing new," she said; "I have as many things as I care to
have."

"Nonsense, Nell," cried her father, frowning at her in a significant
manner to express his disapproval of this folly, and in so doing looking
at her for the first time since her suitor's advent. "Every young woman
likes new gowns, and of course you'll take Steph's friendly offer, and
thank him kindly for it. He knows that I'm pretty hard-up just now, and
won't be able to do much for you; and it wouldn't do for Mrs. Whitelaw of
Wyncomb to begin the world with a shabby turn-out."

"Of course not," replied the farmer; "I'll bring you the cash to-morrow
evening, Nell; and the sooner you buy your wedding-gown the better.
There's nothing to wait for, you see. I've got a good home to take you
to. Mother Tadman will march, of course, between this and my wedding-day.
I sha'n't want her when I've a wife to keep house for me."

"Of course not," said the bailiff. "Relations are always dangerous about
a place--ready to make mischief at every hand's turn."

"O, Mr. Whitelaw, you won't turn her out, surely--your own flesh and
blood, and after so many years of service. She told me how hard she had
worked for you."

"Ah, that's just like her," growled the farmer. "I give her a comfortable
home for all these years, and then she grumbles about the work."

"She didn't grumble," said Ellen hastily. "She only told me how
faithfully she had served you."

"Yes; that comes to the same thing. I should have thought you would have
liked to be mistress of your house, Nell, without any one to interfere
with you."

"Mrs. Tadman is nothing to me," answered Ellen, who had been by no means
prepossessed by that worthy matron; "but I shouldn't like her to be
unfairly treated on my account."

"Well, we'll think about it, Nell; there's no hurry. She's worth her
salt, I daresay."

Mr. Whitelaw seemed to derive a kind of satisfaction from the utterance
of his newly-betrothed's Christian name, which came as near the rapture
of a lover as such a sluggish nature might be supposed capable of. To
El